He Used To Be Mine
by ttfan111robstar1
Summary: Grief twists a person. This is how the death of her son twisted Rowena.


Screaming. Crying. Breaking. Agony.

Death was painful. She knew this well. She had died more than her share of times. She had lost herself in the black abyss of death many a time. But the blackness was not painful itself, and she was not dead. Death could be hard when dying, yes. But death was hardest on the living.

There was no power, no prestige, no fame, no title, no material or intangible thing that could make this death worth it. Her son, her little Fergus, her wee sausage, was dead. She had gone to every conceivable length to get him back. She had even faced death herself, who used to be a reaper when they had met previously. But her blackmail, her anger, her begging of death to give him back and if she could not do that to take her instead, had come to nothing. The black void of her grief had been opened, and nothing now would close it. Nothing except death herself, with her icy hands around Rowena's neck, as she drew her last breath.

She might have tried to kill herself, but it would not work. Death had said that she would meet her fate at the hands of Sam Winchester. It would not end any other way. She had known that was all it would be. No attempts to kill herself and reunite with her son would be validated. So, she was stuck in a world in which she did not want to be in anymore, with no conceivable way out.

She had begged Sam to end her, when the blackness seemed so thick and dark she could not see a way through, but he would not. He still had use for her. He was using her to meet his own ends, and she could not help but wonder if that was how she had made her son feel every day of his life. In all reality though, she had likely made him feel worse- like a burden she had been forced to carry, one that she did not want, nor that she cared about. But that wasn't true. She saw that now. Under her layers of bravado, under all her meaningless words of hatred, she had loved him, maybe even adored him. It took death ripping him from her to take the blinders off of her and make her see that truth. How petty was she that it had had to come to that for her to truly see what she had always had?

Regrets came through her mind daily now. A word she'd said, an action she'd taken, a feeling she'd had. In the string of life, she realized now that all of it had been the worst choices she could have made. It was only standing on the outside that she could have seen it for what it was. It left a bitter taste in her mouth, and the taste couldn't be washed away.

She had gone home after that trying to piece together the remains of her shattered life. She made changes to her life. She wore a necklace with her son's picture in it, carrying him with her everywhere she went. She wrote him letters every day. She visited his grave when she could. She tried to make herself just… be. But she couldn't be. Not anymore. It was like trying to make an old building new again from the existing rubble. When she accepted that, she tried to keep going.

But it was exhausting, keeping up that pace of living. She came when needed to the Winchesters, but it was like her mind was in someone else's body when she came. She never remembered the words she said to them or the things they asked of her. She did what was asked of her and left. That's all there was left for her to give.

She grew thinner, sharper, more bony. She barely ate anymore. Her face grew gaunt, and the dark shadows under her eyes she usually got from no sleep seemed permanently a part of her. She stopped putting on make up, and barely left her house. Simple activities became chores- showering was exhaustive, and cooking had gone by the wayside. Now she just ordered food when she needed to eat. Her brain wasn't working right, both from malnutrition and lack of sleep. She couldn't think clearly anymore. The only sound that mattered now was the ticking of the clock in her home. The ticking noises came, and each one was a relief. Every second was one closer to her end, and meant that she might see her son again.

When the Winchesters came looking for her one day, they saw just how emaciated she had become. When Dean had asked her what had happened to her, she had a reply at the ready- perhaps the only clear thought she had had in weeks.

"Death is coming for me anyway. I might as well make it easier for her."

The brothers were… not concerned, per se, but something close. But there wasn't much that they could do. They could not force her to eat, and they could not help with her sleep. They had left without remembering the reason they had come- as if they had somehow been sucked into her black hole of grief too.

For days, weeks, months, the pattern continued, and bizarre habits followed them. Rowena would find herself wandering, aimlessly, at night. She would walk and walk for hours and hours at a time. It wasn't until she did it one night and Castiel found her and said that she was searching for her son that she realized that that's what she was doing. The angel had told her that because of her son's sacrifice many people were safe. But she didn't care. That was _her _son out there. That was _her baby. _Who was he to tell her that her son killed himself for a good reason? There was no good reason. There never would be. None of this should have happened. It wasn't fair.

When The Winchesters had told her of her son's death, she had wanted to scream at them that they were lying, that he wasn't dead, that they were going to pay for saying such a thing. But she had kept those screams inside, instead giving cool or angry responses. It was denial, or shock, or maybe both. She didn't know. All she had known was that her son was dead. That was all that had mattered to her, and they had changed the subject as if what they had told her had not completely shattered her life as she knew it.

He was her baby. And she certainly made mistakes with him- ones she could never rectify. But he was _hers. Her _son. The ferocious protective instinct she had buried with him had risen up again with even more power. He was all she had had left. Her only family, her flesh and blood, her joy and pain all in one. But there had never been a moment where she did not recognize that. Oh, sometimes she had ignored it with all her willpower, but she had always recognized it somewhere, perhaps in the recesses of her mind. Now it was shoved to the forefront, and made bittersweet with all of that knowledge.

All she had, all she loved, all of _her_ was gone. And there was no going back until death whispered her a lullaby and sang her to sleep.


End file.
